The new partnership between Affirm and Experian means the impulse-buying economy will be running headlong into America’s data-mining ecosystem

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• As more and more products become available for purchase in installments—even takeout food and groceries—credit-reporting bureaus are moving to incorporate that data into consumers’ profiles. Affirm began sharing data with Experian and has been feeding information to the developer of the FICO score. In other words: The impulse-buying economy is running headlong into America’s data-mining ecosystem.

Four in 10 Americans have used a buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) provider like Klarna, Affirm, or Afterpay to put purchases from handbags to burritos on installment payment plans. But for a long time, those payment plans have been a blind spot for credit-reporting bureaus that were more concerned with traditional credit like credit cards or student loans. That’s changing in a big way.